There was a homecoming feel to the Distinguished Alumni Lecture at the University of Ghana School of Law, as Supreme Court Justice Emmanuel Yonny Kulendi returned to the halls where he trained, this time to address a new generation of law students about the profession he has spent a career shaping.
“It is a singular privilege to return to the University of Ghana School of Law, the institution that contributed to my understanding of what it means to be a lawyer,” he told the gathering, describing the visit as humbling because it reminded him that before he became a judge, he was first a student, learning that the law demands hard work, focus, integrity and intellectual honesty — values he said have remained the bedrock of his professional journey ever since.
Before turning to the substance of his lecture, Justice Kulendi shared what he called his “Wa boy” story, a personal reflection on his own path from the Upper West Region, where he grew up, to a seat on Ghana’s highest court, a journey that has made him the first Justice of the Supreme Court to hail from the region.
Rather than dwell further on his own rise, he used most of his address to speak to the students directly about the institutions they are about to inherit, telling them that the legal system they enter is imperfect, as every generation’s has been, but that resignation is not an option.
His own journey, from a modest start in the Upper West to the apex of the judiciary, stood as a backdrop to that message: that hard work, integrity and intellectual honesty, learned early, can carry a lawyer a long way.
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